Tag Archives: articulation

Post navigation

Since Easter is fast approaching, what better time to talk about chickens?!?! I thought I would share with you my latest adventure (in regards to chicken)…

A few weeks ago, I decided to set out on the quest of articulating the skeleton on an animal. I came to the conclusion that a chicken would be my best option. It would be easy to find one, they couldn’t have that many bones, and it would be small enough that I could easily assemble it. All three of these assumptions were wrong, but out of it I got my darling chicken, Fitzwilliam.

FIRST STEP: Let’s talk about the splendid experience of finding a chicken. I assumed that when chickens arrive at the supermarket, they are all intact. The butcher gets rid of the neck and legs and freshly puts them on display. This is not so. Apparently chickens do NOT arrive with these parts.

My first stop was ACME. Now, they do not have the best butchery department, but hey, they must have CHICKENS for god’s sake. Here’s how my conversation with the butcher went:

Butcher: “Hi there! How can I help you?”

ME: “I’m looking for a chicken. Would you happen to have one?”

Butcher: “Why, yes! They’re right over there”

ME: “No, I’m sorry. I meant, do you have any chickens with, you know…the head and feet still attached?”

Butcher: “HAHAHAHAH!!! What, are you doing some type of satanic sacrifice? No, we don’t carry them here. You’ll have to look around for one of them…”

And he was quite right. I was going to have to look around. I decided then that I was going to call places before running around like a chicken without a head (hehehe). I called so many butchers, grocery stores, and markets, but to no avail. I either got laughed at or hung up on. I guess that my request wasn’t the norm…FINALLY on a whim I decided that I would go out to the Asian Market as a final desperate chance.

I walked up to the butcher here and had basically the same conversation as previously depicted, but instead of the butcher laughing at me, he just walked away and went into the back. I didn’t know what to do so I just waited for about a minute. Then he finally came out with Fitzwilliam. My Chicken.

I glowed as I walked up to the cash-register. Finally, It would be easy sailing from here. WRONG.

SECOND STEP: Getting the bones. I knew that I was going to have to boil the chicken because I didn’t have a colony of flesh eating bugs on hand. So, I got to experience the wonderful smell of over-boiled chicken!

THIRD STEP: Clean the bones. It was relatively late at night when I started to separate the meat from the bones and remove the cartilage. Little did I know that it would take a few hours for this process alone.

FOURTH STEP: Bleach the bones. As I finished cleaning each bone, I placed it into a bath of hydrogen peroxide. Once all of them were in, I added bleach. Apparently, when you mix hydrogen peroxide and bleach, you get a white foam…

FIFTH STEP: Clean them again…because anything left on the bones will now come off easier. Then rinse.

SIXTH STEP: Articulate. Much easier said than done. No matter how many pictures you look at, nothing seems to fit together. In the end, I took artistic liberties and created Fitzwiliam.

He may not have ribs or feet, or even be atomically correct, but I adore him. His journey was one of adventure: from the back room of an Asian Food Market to my office shelf. Maybe one day I will be able to make him a proper sibling, but until then, he’s perfect. <3